


sea creature/ocean child

by lolainslackss



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Sea Monsters, Selkies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 21:37:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15128318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lolainslackss/pseuds/lolainslackss
Summary: When Aaron is lost to the sea, Andrew captures a selkie and enlists him to help bring his brother back.Written for Andreil Week 2018 Day One / prompt: mythology





	sea creature/ocean child

**Author's Note:**

> playing it extremely fast and loose with selkie myths over here
> 
> if you wanna listen to music while reading this, i recommend dark doo wop by ms mr, siren song by bat for lashes, or tides and telegrams by the winter tradition :,)

When he wakes - bolting upright and reaching for the light - the clock on his bedside table reads 3:00 AM. Aaron’s been gone for three days now, and it’s been the same every night. He wakes, checks the time, looks inside Aaron’s room just in case. Then, he goes outside to calm the tremors in his hands with a blast of nicotine and cold air.

At night-time, it feels abandoned, their tiny island spat in the middle of the ocean. Across the road - which is streaked with rain - Nicky and Erik’s house is dim, silent. He smears his wilting cigarette in a puddle of water and gets up.

“He’s probably just crashing on a friend’s couch,” Nicky had assured him earlier. “You know how he gets when the two of you fight.”

It’s a sensible thing to say, but Andrew knows that’s not true. He had spent the last couple of days casually loitering outside the houses of anyone who could be considered Aaron’s ‘friend’ and there had been no sign of him.

Andrew also knows that the sea that surrounds them is full of secrets. Things that scratch and bite, things that steal humans away. Monsters.

He tightens his scarf around his neck and keeps walking. He tries not to think of Aaron’s body sinking into the depths of the sea, water sloshing through the delicate architecture of his lungs, or of the waves washing away his clothes, skin, the smooth, silky strips of pink muscle until only bones and teeth remain. _Worse_ , he tries not to think of his brother crushed under the bruising weight of glistening, purple tentacles, or swallowed by a wide, gaping mouth filled with too-many teeth.

The houses he passes on his way seem almost empty. The night sky above him is cloudless and he can just make out some ghost-like wisps of green and yellow.

“Seeing the Northern Lights would be pretty cool, I guess,” Aaron had muttered when Nicky had picked them up all those years ago.

Andrew hadn’t replied. He’d been out-of-it. Bleary-eyed and hollowed out with barely enough energy to clip his seatbelt in.

He reaches the shore. Coming to the edge of the ocean alone and in the middle of the night is breaking all his own rules but he’s out of options. He grits his teeth and scans the waves before realising he’s not alone.

Sitting on the sand, letting the waves lap across his toes, is a man.

He’s watching the moon, arms folded across his knees. Sand crawls up his arms and sticks to his feet. His reddish hair is braided with seaweed, tethered together with what looks like twine from a broken net. As Andrew continues to watch him, he realises there’s an ominous, otherworldly beauty to him. His limbs seem to shimmer in the moonlight and when he turns his head, his eyes are full dark, empty. Andrew ducks behind a rock, his head filling with strange music. He can practically taste sea-salt, sharp on the tip of his tongue.

Andrew already knows this isn’t a regular boy. He’s an ocean boy, left behind by a wave and doomed to return. The same as a little wisp of sea foam or a tiny, orange chip of coral. The frothy edges of the tide spill over his feet and once again he looks around, as if he can sense Andrew’s closeness.

Andrew follows his line of sight and that’s when he sees it: the seal-skin.

It’s silver and spotted, a mirror for the moonlight, and instead of feeling unsettled, Andrew thinks _fucking bingo_ because if anyone would know where Aaron is, it’s a selkie.

While the selkie focuses on the luscious, green-dark calm of the ocean, Andrew stands and sneaks quietly across the sand toward the seal-skin, grabbing it from the shore-line in one fluid motion and letting it pool in his hands. Once again he hears that twinkling lullaby as the shimmering silver of it rocks in his palms. He digs his nails in, not allowing it to flop out of his grip, and the man lets slip a pained hiss.

Andrew slides his gaze from the seal-skin to the selkie, who is now standing up and glaring at him. Andrew feels disarmed, though he’s the one holding the prize. The selkie is naked, and Andrew has heard talk of their beauty, built to bewitch, but he had no idea it could be like _that_ . Desire fizzes through his veins like lit firecrackers skidding across the concrete. Andrew’s first instinct is to look away, but he stares on, and realises he was wrong before: the selkie’s eyes aren’t empty, not really. In fact, they could be holding the entire ocean, the blue rippling like waves during a storm. _Dizzy_ , Andrew thinks, shaking away the sudden feeling of seasickness, an overwhelming saltiness coating his tongue.

“That’s mine,” says the selkie.

“Not anymore,” Andrew counters, turning on his heel and striding across the sand.

“Are you kidding?” the selkie snaps, following.

“Nope,” Andrew says, making it to the road. He turns, and the selkie is eyeing the tarmac unsurely, as if he’s about to cross some imaginary threshold.

“Those stories about selkie lovers are just myths, you know,” the selkie continues, tiptoeing onto the road and then chasing after Andrew.

Andrew huffs out a laugh at that.

They continue walking, the selkie ranting away, ordering Andrew to give the seal-skin back. When they reach the house, Andrew immediately goes to his room and throws it onto his chair as if it’s an old, ratty blanket. He locks the door as he leaves and tosses the selkie some of his more ill-fitting clothes. The selkie wrinkles his nose as he pinches the fabric between his fingers.

“They’re clothes,” Andrew drawls. “You’re naked.”

“I wouldn’t be, if you hadn’t stolen my seal-skin,” the selkie snaps, his whirlpool eyes darting to Andrew’s locked bedroom door.

“But then you’d just go back to the ocean,” Andrew replies blandly, “and we can’t have that, can we?”

“Wh- why not?” the selkie asks, and Andrew notices that behind the outrage, he’s shaken. He wonders if it’s the first time his seal-skin has been stolen and then sucks in a breath through his teeth, reminding himself that selkies are the same as any other sea creature.

“I need you to help me find something,” Andrew says eventually.

The selkie sullenly begins to dress, though Andrew notices sea-water still clings to his long, lithe limbs. The selkie pulls on the hoodie and shivers.

“Cold?” Andrew asks uncaringly.

“Not used to b- being in this f-form for so long,” the selkie replies through chattering teeth.

“ _Get_ used to it,” Andrew tells him.

“What do you want from me?” the selkie asks, looking around the darkened room as if looking for a steel-trap, a sea-mine.

“The sea has taken something that’s mine,” Andrew replies, folding his arms across his chest. “You’re going to find out where he is.”

“ _He_?” the selkie repeats, confused.

“My brother,” Andrew says and he wonders if that’s the first time he’s ever actually said it out loud. Not _Aaron_ or _stupid_ or nothing at all, but brother. He pushes the thought aside like an empty plate.

“How long has he been gone?” the selkie asks impatiently.

“This was the third day,” Andrew replies, thinking of the clock, and of that bright, neon green 3:00 AM flashing at him like a cruel grin.

“Then he’s dead,” the selkie says without feeling. “Drowned or eaten or turned to dust or-”

“Shut up,” Andrew cuts him off, his fingers itching for a knife to throw. “He isn’t dead.”

“How would you know?” the selkie retorts, rolling his eyes.

“I just would,” Andrew mutters.

“It’s fine,” the selkie goes on, “in a thousand years or so, they might dig him up, date him like a relic, when he’s all ruined by the sea and time. I mean, _sure_ , they won’t know his name or his favourite colour or where he grew up, but he’ll be found. Eventually.”

“That’s not good enough,” Andrew replies, his jaw aching from tensing it for too long. “You’ll find him. Alive.”

“This might be news to you,” the selkie says, voice tinted poisonous yellow with sarcasm, “but I can’t go scouring the sea for your dead brother if _you_ have my seal-skin.”

“I know that,” Andrew retorts. He hasn’t really figured out the logistics of the situation yet.

“What’s your name?” the selkie asks, and the question is flippant, plucked from nowhere. It’s as if he’s stalling for time, planning an escape - _or_ , Andrew thinks - maybe he’s going to devour him whole, turn his blood to ice water.

“Don’t worry,” the selkie says, giving Andrew a mocking look. “All my magical powers are tied to my seal-skin. Without it, I’m just a regular human.”

Andrew watches him blankly, noticing the way his eyes morph from the shifting colour of a roaring sea to the full, shining black eyes of a seal, thinking he’s anything but _regular_ or _human_.

“My name is Neil,” the selkie goes on, flashing Andrew a smile that's all teeth.

“Neil,” Andrew repeats, his voice cracking a bit as he draws out the single syllable. “Doesn’t sound like the name of an all-powerful sea creature.”

Neil just shrugs.

Andrew pauses a moment, the myths getting a little muddled. There was danger in revealing your name to certain creatures, he knew that.

“I’m not a fairy,” Neil says, as if reading his mind. “I’m not going to whisk you away to the forest as soon as your name’s out of your mouth.”

“Andrew,” Andrew finally gives it up, like a message in a bottle cast out onto the waves. “And the person you’re going to find is Aaron.”

“Maybe,” Neil says, tugging the seaweed from his hair, which was drying into an untidy mop of auburn curls.

“I’m going to bed,” Andrew says gruffly. “Don’t try to follow me in here.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Neil asks.

“I don’t care,” Andrew replies, keeping his eyes fixed on Neil as he undoes the lock on his door and slips inside.

He locks it behind him and flops into bed fully clothed. His eyes are drawn to the seal-skin which lies on top of the dirty laundry sitting in his chair. In the dark, it’s the colour of starlight and dust, and Andrew falls asleep with something like bells ringing inside his head, the stale taste of sea-water bleeding into his mouth.

He dreams about a sea-bird that’s lost its way and ends up tangled in a net. He dreams about Aaron and himself in binds made of seaweed and fishing-rod wire, mermaids and mermen circling them with dead-grey eyes. Finally, he dreams of nothing at all.

 

…

 

Andrew wakes to the sound of his alarm. Outside, the sky is a swamp of grey-yellow, the same colour as cloudy lemonade. He rolls out of bed feeling more tired than when he got into it.

In the kitchen, the selkie is sitting at the kitchen table, eating sardines straight out of the tin. He watches Andrew enter the room, as poised as a cat on a hunt.

“Let’s say I agree to help you,” Neil says, lacing his hands together, “and you give me my seal-skin and I go back to the sea. What then? What if I just swim away and never come back?”

Andrew pours cereal into a bowl, annoyed. He’s even more annoyed when he realises they don’t have milk. He sits down at the table across from Neil and shovels a dry spoonful into his mouth, crunching down hard.

“Maybe you’ll just have to trust me,” Neil goes on, smiling. “Have you ever done that before? Trusted anyone?”

Andrew swallows down the cereal. The easiest answer is _no_ and the more complicated answer is _yes_. The most truthful answer would be _not easily_ but instead, he settles on, “have you?”

Neil’s smirk is taut and his eyes flit between black and blue.

“I can’t keep a piece of it,” Andrew says, testing the waters.

“No, you certainly can’t,” Neil agrees, poking the prongs of his fork through a tiny sliver of fish.

“Then we exchange something,” Andrew replies slowly.

“Paying me for my services?” Neil opens his mouth wide in mocking surprise. “That would be a start. I don’t rescue brothers-in-distress for free, you know.”

“What, then?” Andrew levels the question at him, a sacrifice.

“You can figure out how to break this curse,” Neil tells him. “I want to change back.”

Andrew scoffs. “You were never really human. You were born to the sea.”

“That’s not true,” Neil replies. “This was a punishment.”

Andrew watches Neil carefully, certain he’s being lied to.

“You lived on this island?” Andrew asks eventually.

“Yes,” Neil nods. “I was on the run and thought this would be a good place to hide.”

“Are your things still here?” Andrew goes on.

“I buried some of my old things beneath the old oak when I first came here. You know it?”

Andrew nods in response.

“My old things,” Neil says, his voice growing quiet, and it’s as if he’s never thought of it before. “Something from when I was human. Maybe that _will_ work-”

Neil trails off and his eyes are two blue crystals, clear and fixed.

“Fine,” Andrew says, unable to sit in the unbearable, melancholy quiet much longer. “I’ll get your sentimental crap. You find my brother.”

 

...

 

So Andrew hands over the seal-skin and lets Neil go back to the sea. He waits for the sickly chiming ringing in his head to stop, for the sour, ocean taste to disappear, but neither happens.  

He reaches the oak and lets the trowel sink into the earth with a crumbly thud. He sifts through the dirt for what feels like hours until the tip of the trowel clinks against something solid. Andrew’s hands scramble through the dirt until he can pull out what’s been hiding in there: a large tin, dented in places. He yanks the lid off, black pencil lines of dirt trapped under his nails and looks inside.

There’s not much - a wallet, a passport with a fake name, and an old set of keys lying on top of a faded, grey sweater. Andrew narrows his eyes at the objects. He hadn’t known selkies were once people of the earth, bewitched to take on a second skin, shift from one form to another, forever caught between the shore and the depths. The thought is an unwelcome one, especially when it comes to Aaron's disappearance.

He grits his teeth as he tucks the tin beneath his arm and the he runs from the woods.

 

...

 

He sits by the tide, the foamy water spilling over his feet. Before him, the sea seems to quiver with the promise of things to come. While he waits, he drags a twig chipped of all its bark through the sand, creating tiny ditches for the water to collect in.

It happens so fast, like something out of one of the old, adventure movies he and Aaron would watch in stormy, brooding silence when they first moved to the island. One minute the sea is calm and still. The next, Neil is rising out of it like a demigod, his eyes awash with twilit shadows. His seal-skin is slung over his shoulder like a shawl. In his arms, is Aaron.

Andrew feels something like a pendulum swing from side-to-side in his chest. He gets to his feet just as Neil tosses his brother on the shore-line and crosses the short distance it takes to reach him before getting down on his knees and pressing a finger to Aaron’s pulse.

His heartbeat is a dripping faucet at night-time and Andrew exhales. He’s okay.

“The sirens had him,” Neil says disapprovingly. “Now _they’re_ pissed with me too. You’re welcome.”

Aaron’s breathing is shallow and his eyelids twitch. Andrew inspects him for any sign of injury and is surprised to find none.

“They just like to look at pretty things, really,” Neil says with a shrug.

Aaron stirs and his eyes flicker open. He coughs once, twice, and then sits up way too fast. He clutches his head.

“What the hell-?” He asks, skittish. His gaze darts between Andrew and Neil and the ocean and then he looks queasy. “I’m back? For real?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Neil answers him imperiously. “They won’t come looking for you again, I promise.”

“Who are _you_?” Aaron asks, annoyed. “And where are your clothes?”

Neil ignores him and turns to Andrew. Andrew still hasn’t been able to speak. He balls up his fists and keeps them in his lap.

“My things?” Neil asks, and his mask of arrogance slips. It’s replaced by fear, hope; they’re rubbing against one another and creating sparks, flint against steel.

Andrew slides the dirt-covered tin towards Neil and watches as he gingerly lifts the lid and pulls out each object. He lines them up on the sand the same way Aaron used to with shards of sea glass. Finally, Neil unfolds the sweater and pulls the fabric close. It’s the same colour of grey as the seal-skin lying discarded by the water’s edge and Andrew sucks in a breath.

Neil frowns and then collects all the other objects in his hands. Aaron looks at Andrew questioningly, prompting Andrew to release a sigh and begin explaining.

Aaron wrinkles his nose, the sirens’ song probably still a raw wound in his mind. He believes Andrew immediately and they both turn to watch Neil grow increasingly frustrated, then sad.

“It’s not working,” Neil chokes out, gathering his old things to his chest.

“How can you even tell?” Aaron asks.

“I can just feel it,” Neil replied, his eyes two swollen black orbs. “The sea is still… it’s calling me.”

“Can’t you just stay on land, anyway?” Aaron goes on. Andrew folds his arms and wonders.

“I can, but-” Neil hesitates. “It’s a bit like being torn in two.”

His back to the sea, Neil refuses to turn around. It’s as if doing so will make it real. He’s an ocean boy, a person of the sea. No matter how many times he unsticks himself from the tides, he’s always doomed to return. It’s a punishment, a _curse_.

“Kiss me,” Andrew says all of a sudden.

“What the fuck?” Aaron cries. “How will that accomplish anything?”

“You said it’s a spell, right?” Andrew continues, ignoring Aaron and staring at Neil. “Isn’t that a common way to break one?”

“This isn’t a-” Neil’s voice is rough like the sand beneath their feet. “You’re mixing up your myths. I’m not a sleeping princess. This isn’t some fairy-tale.”

“Why not?” Andrew counters. “Curses, shape-shifting, magical creatures. Sounds like a fairy-tale.”

“I-” Neil is still clutching his old sweater, his old keys dangling from his index finger and jangling in the breeze. “I’ve never thought about it before.”

“You don’t have to,” Andrew tells him. “But you told me to find a way to break this curse. This could be it.”

Neil puts down his things with a pained expression and nods. “I want to try.”

Andrew gets to his feet and they stare at each other stupidly for a moment. He wonders, briefly, if he’ll get enchanted himself, before shaking the feeling away. He walks up to Neil and gets up on his toes. Up close, Neil’s beauty is even more alarming, and Andrew has to think back to the last time he even did this. He tilts his head and looks at the quirk of Neil’s lips through half-lidded eyes.

When he kisses him, he expects it to be all wet and salty, like swimming in the ocean, but Neil’s lips are rough and chapped, as steady as a stone chosen for skimming. For the first time that day, the strange lullaby subsides and his mouth knows no other taste than Neil. Their mouths crash against each other like waves against the rocks and it’s, well, it’s _nice_. Andrew wonders how long it takes for a curse to break, whether it’ll have happened already or if he should slip his tongue in and brush it against Neil’s once more, for good measure. Neil’s hands, soft and warm, glide up his neck and then-

“Holy shit,” Aaron hisses, and they break apart, their eyes following Aaron’s pointing finger.

Near the edge of the water, the seal skin is dissolving into nothing, shards of silver disappearing into the wind, into the ocean. Neil’s eyes widen, and he steps forward to grab it but it’s already gone. He mutters a curse as he stares out at the ocean.

“It’s gone,” he mutters, and when he turns to face Andrew, he’s lost that otherworldly shimmer. His angular, elf-like beauty has smudged a little at the edges. Andrew notices that Neil’s eyes have stopped shifting between black and blue. They’re something new: a quick, bright shade of aquamarine, but he’s still Neil.

He’s still Neil, and the seal-skin is gone. It’s as if it belonged to the sea all along or had never existed at all.

“I can’t believe it,” Neil says, looking down at himself in pure wonder. “It worked.”

Andrew watches him and now he can see it: Neil on the run and hiding his things in an old, tin box beneath the earth, pissing off sea witches and being enveloped by sea-water, returning again and again to the shore to wish for the curse to be lifted. And now it is. A perfect myth. A perfect truth.

“How do you feel?” Aaron asks warily.

“Real,” Neil supplies immediately. “I feel real.”

Behind him, the waves continue to kiss the shore.

**Author's Note:**

> i post bs on [tumblr](http://palmetttos.tumblr.com)


End file.
